So myself and a mate took to the table to fight it out with two Imperial fleets. I took a ship focused fleet that I'm hoping use in an upcoming store event and the other fleet was trying out Sloane as the admiral.
Fleets:
My Fleet:
Points: 398/400
Commander: Moff Jerjerrod
Assault Objective: Most Wanted
Defense Objective: Hyperspace Assault
Navigation Objective: Minefields
Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)
- Relentless ( 3 points)
- Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
= 136 total ship cost
[ flagship ] Victory II-Class Star Destroyer (85 points)
- Moff Jerjerrod ( 23 points)
- Spinal Armament ( 9 points)
= 117 total ship cost
Gladiator II-Class Star Destroyer (62 points)
- Insidious ( 3 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 74 total ship cost
Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
- Instigator ( 4 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Flechette Torpedoes ( 3 points)
= 55 total ship cost
1 Captain Jonus ( 16 points)
Opposing Fleet:
SHIP: Imperial II 120
UPGRADES PTS
Admiral Sloane 24
Gunnery Team 7
Reinforced Blast Doors 5
Spinal Armament 9
Avenger 5
TOTAL POINTS: 170
SHIP: Victory II 85
UPGRADES PTS
Flight Commander 3
Expanded Hangar Bay 5
Corrupter 5
TOTAL POINTS: 98
SHIP: Gozanti Cruisers 23
UPGRADES PTS
Bomber Command Center 8
Expanded Hangar Bay 5
TOTAL POINTS: 36
SQUADRONS PTS
Maarek Stele 21
Gamma Squadron 10
Tempest Squadron 13
TIE Defender Squadron × 1 16
Saber Squadron 12
Major Rhymer 16
TIE Fighter Squadron × 1 8
TOTAL POINTS: 96
ASSAULT:
Precision Strike
DEFENSE:
Fighter Ambush
NAVIGATION:
Superior Positions
I had the bid and chose to go first - the mission was Superior Positions
Start of Turn 1
As I had to deploy everything first, I spread out a bit. Instigator was to shadow
Relentless
(as I assumed it would be a target for Sloane) while the VSD and Insidious were placed to one side.
Relentless
,
Instigator
and the VSD were all pointed at the station while
Insidious
was intended to take the long way round the back and maybe come into play around turn 3/4.
The opposing fleet deployed together though to face off against the VSD and
Insidious
.
I pushed
Relentless
and
Instigator
to speed 3 and 4 respectively to close the distance while the VSD stayed at speed 1 and cruised forward.
Insidious
made a JJ turn to the right to try to reposition itself out of the part of Avenger - the idea was to either be able to sneak past it, or to force it to turn into me and effectively take it out of the rest of the game.
The opposing fleet moved forward as one and repositioned the squadrons for a turn 2 attack.
Start of Turn 2
I moved
Relentless
forward again (staying at speed 3) to land on the station and
Instigator
stayed at speed 4 to be able to keep up with it. The VSD moved forward again at speed 1 and
Insidious
survived (more on this!) to set up a double arc shot on
Avenger
next turn.
On he other side, the VSD activated two bombers, Marrek and a regular defender (center of the pic) and sent them after
Insidious
. The bombers both rolled Hit/Crit forcing me to use a brace for the first one and then a redirect for the other as Marrek had rolled an accuracy and taken away my spent brace! I ended up taking two damage cards and had only one front shield along with a single Evade token to use against
Avenger
(can't use spent tokens).
Avenger
then reveals a Concentrate Fire command which, along with Spinal Armament, gave it 6 red dice to throw at me needing to get 4 damage through for the kill. But rolled this:
Guess what I used the Evade on?
It was an unholy roll. By all rights, Insidious should have been toast.
The Gozanti and VSD moved up but knowing that they would pass under the guns of Relentless next turn.
Start of Turn 3:
I moved
Insidious
first as I knew it wasn't long for this world. The APTs put through two damage cards and I was able to strip off all of the side and front shields. It moved around behind Avenger, but was chased down by the bombers/defenders and destroyed.
Avenger
moved up and took 4 shields off my VSD. I activated
Relentless
last to be sure to get both the Gozanti and VSD with the Gunnery Team - the Gozanti was destroyed (Jonus got me the accuracy I needed) and the VSD was hit in the rear, stripping shields and causing some damage.
Just to Note: The plan with Jonus is to try to position him in the same turn as I maneuver the raider against opposing squadrons. Jonus normally activates by himself in the squadron phase (while
Instigator
would be my last ship to move if planning to engage squadrons next turn). I move Jonus to where I think ships will be moving to so that they bring themselves into his effect range. The idea is to force a choice for the other player - activate squadrons to kill the
Instigator
or attack Jonus to protect your ships.
Start of Turn 4:
This was a short turn!
Relentless
activated first and took the VSD down to 1 hull and caused 6 damage cards on Avenger (4 accuracies [one due to Jonus]) - it finished off the VSD then by ramming it.
Avenger
stripped the remaining shields off the VSD and did (I think) 3 points of damage, but the VSD caused another 4 damage in return.
We called it here as
Relentless
would easily account for ISD in Turn 5.
Take aways from the game:
Sloane is *really* good. We both agreed that cheaper TIEs or Interceptors if you like, would be better than high point Defenders. The awful roll that
Avenger
made against
Insidious
was the beginning of the end in many ways, but by all rights the combination of Sloane spending defense tokens and
Avenger
not allowing you to use spent tokens looks like a very deadly combination. Certainly better than trying to use overload pulses for the same effect.